The Legendary Familiars
by The Uncreative
Summary: A crossover featuring characters from Familiar of Zero, Shakugan no Shana, Toradora, Hidan no Aria, Hayate the Combat Butler, Disgaea 4, and Black Cat! What could go wrong?
1. Chapter 1

**First Ammo: The Butler, Tiger, and Black Cat Appear!**

_Okay, recap to save time! It all started I don't even know how long age, when Saito was born. But that's too far back so we fast forward to when he got sucked into Halkegnia by a giant green portal thing. There he met his current wife, Louise blah de blah Valliere, now Louise Hiraga which is a much more easily pronounceable name. Well, she wasn't technically his wife, but she was and the whole situation's an easily understandable mess. See, a few years after showing up, the poor bastard formally known as Saito got pulled into a time warp and did everything over again. _That's_ the Louise he made Louise Hiraga. Also he met me! The incredible Inner Monologue! What am I exactly? **** if I know._

_Anyway, a few years or so after _that_ whole fiasco, Louise and Saito get caught in a horribly failed teleport spell that failed so epicly and miserably that it tore a whole in space-time and plopped them straight into an alternate timeline where Louise summoned the incredibly gorgeous Flame Haired, Burning Eyed hunter, Shana whom I absolutely adore. She came from a timeline where she killed her boyfriend Sakai Yuji, who had merged with the Snake of the Festival aka THE ****ING GOD OF CREATION! This kind of pissed me off because I hadn't read the last light novel yet, but it turned out fine because it was a sort of alternate ending I guess, so everything's cool, and nothing was spoiled for me. Needless to say, she wasn't happy about killing the first person she ever fell in love with. But it's 'kay, because now she loves Saito to my eternal joy, because it's like she's loving me by proxy. Kind of. Unfortunately, Saito's still set on Louise, and refuses to accept my idea of going for the threesome. Oh, he loves his timeline's Louise, (who we call Louise 1) not the Louise that summoned Shana (who we call Louise 2). Good thing too, considering she's dropped a hint or two that she's in love with Shana, which I find far hotter then I should. Maybe I should make an artist's rendering of them making out and post it on the internet? Nah, Saito's head's internet connection is far too slow. It's a wonder I can browse the internet at all._

_Of course, things staying the same is boring, and around the time we offed the first Jormundgand (read: Giant metal golem of death and destruction) we were approached by a little girl who didn't look older then nine years old. She said her name was Ariana, and that she was an angel. Apparently, real angels monitor the various timelines of each universe to make sure nothing extraordinarily bad happens, and they registered that something fitting just that description was going to happen to us! Awesome! Ariana described it as a sort of blackness that would eventually eat up this timeline then most of this whole universe. Or maybe it was existence? I dunno, that sounds kind of stupid. Either way, she said she had been sent to help us out and would be back in a week to help us prepare. She didn't say what the threat was, but by putting two and two together, I'm pretty sure it's the return of the Snake god dude, which severely frightened me. Then I remembered that Shana soloed him, and this time it was 4 on 1, and my confidence increased, even if I am still wary of fighting a freaking GOD. With that said, a week has passed, and now we're waiting for her to show up. Let's get this show on the road!_

***Story Start!***

Me, the Louises and Shana were currently sitting at a table in the courtyard of the academy, waiting for someone to show up. Thinking about it a bit, how would she show up? Descend upon us on a beam of light? _That's stupid._ 'Never underestimate people's need for theatricality.'

Since we were waiting and it might be a while before that person showed up, I figured I'd bring up something with the group that's been bugging me for a while.

"You know, I noticed something," I begin.

"And what's that?" Louise 1 asked.

"Louise and Shana sound almost exactly alike."

The Louises and Shana stare at me blankly for a little.

"No, I'm serious. I mean, I think I've been around Louise long enough to differentiate her voice from Shana's but they still sound really similar," I tell them.

"Considering how close there universes are in terms of birth, it honestly doesn't surprise me," someone says before any of the girls can answer.

I look to my right and see a girl sitting in a chair next to me. She didn't look very old, still like a kid around the age of nine. She had long white hair that probably came down to her back, and bright green eyes. Whether or not they glowed in the dark was both a useless question, and the one I was currently wondering. _Focus man!_ 'Says the one who's always yelling at me to stare at Shana's ass some more.' _I have a good reason for that! _'I'm listening.' _... Shana's hot. _'Well she is a flame haze.' _Ha. Ha. Ha. Hilarious. _

Anyway, our new guess was wearing a sleeveless, white, one piece dress that covered to below her knees and had a pocket on the chest. Unlike last time we saw her, she didn't have detached sleeves. _Still no idea how those work. _**_Magic_**, the girl responds in my head. _Really?_**_ Nope._**

"Well, like I was saying," Ariana begins, "Louise's universe and Shana's universe aren't that far apart. Think of each universe as a branch on a tree, and a timeline a leaf on that branch. Each branch still goes back to the same tree, and some branches are close then others, right? Imagine that a leaf from one branch falls off and lands near a leaf on another branch. Well in the case of these universes, branches that grew closer to each other tend to share some data, or leaves as the metaphor states, and things like that. It's perfectly conceivable that Shana and Louise sound alike among other things."

_Intriguing. _

I'm curious as to the classification terms (universes and timelines are different in what way?) but we have more important things to discuss.

"Well, it's been a week, just like you said," I throw out.

"Yeah. What's the first step to saving everything?" Louise 1 asks.

Ariana smiles. "First, Shana. Could you please set up a seal to make sure the conversation remains private?"

Shana nods. "Seal."

And with that one spoken word, a red aura of sorts covers everything and everything caught in it stops moving. _Ah. The familiar sense of the world being removed from the flow of time._ 'I'm not sure if that fact that we're used to time being messed with is a good thing.' _Eh, probably not._

Ariana smiles. "Awesome. Now that we can do whatever we feel like doing with hopefully no interruptions, we can begin. Who wants to go first?"

"First for what?" Alastor asks.

_Holy crap! I forgot he was here. He needs to speak up more._

"Well, we going to need more help, aren't we?" Ariana asked. "I mean, potential universe ending threat, remember? Therefore, you four are going to summon up some more help!"

"Wait, wait, summon as in a familiar summon?" Louise 1 asks, prompting Ariana to nod enthusiastically.

"B-but that's impossible!" Louise 2 protests. "You can't have more then 1 familiar, and Saito and Shana aren't mages!"

"Well... Didn't that founder guy have like, four?" Ariana says. "I guess it never said he had them at the same time, did it? I should probably look into that stuff a bit. Either way, even if it turns out that it is in fact technically impossible to do that normally in this universe, you're forgetting that you're getting help from another dimension of sorts, so I wouldn't really question what is and isn't possible."

"So we all just summon up a familiar?" I ask.

"Yep," comes Ariana's concise reply.

"And that's supposed to make a universal threat beatable?" Shana asks, slight hints of disappointment lining her voice. Maybe I should ask.

"Shana, you seem disappointed. Something the matter?" I ask.

"N-no. Nothing's wrong at all," she replies. Wait. Is she blushing a bit?

After a second, Ariana's eyes widen a bit.

"A giant robot? Really?" She asks out of nowhere.

While me and the Louises look absolutely lost, Shana's blush slightly brightens and she looks shocked.

"H-how-"

"I can read minds, remember?" Ariana asks. "And um... sorry, but that'd cause too big a distortion to bring with us. Sorry."

"I-it's fine. Really," Shana says quickly. "Never talk about it again."

"Right," Ariana says. "Now, going back to what I was saying, doing this won't by any means guarantee us anything. We're just summoning up some more people. What goods are numbers if they can't fight at all and just get slaughtered? Unfortunately I'm still working on that part. Weaponry isn't as easy to come by or license as you may think it is."

"In any case, is there anything that it would help to know before any of us do anything?" I ask. _I'd hate to do something wrong and bring forth the Jabberwocky and have it eat all of us. _**_Well, no danger of that. Probably._** 'Probably?'

"Well, let me go through the basics." With that, Ariana reaches into her shirt pocket and pulls out one of those olds phones that you flip open. A few pings later, it looks like she's brought up some old text document.

"Okay, nothing really major or fanciful," Ariana begins. "First, each familiar will only get Gandalfar abilities, on account of nobody summoning is from or can be associated with anywhere other then Tristain which is apparently how the system works."

_That sucks. I wanted a vindalfar so we could get a giant dragon on our side. Maybe, I dunno, a large cat. Those things are vicious as hell._

"Next, to increase our chances and due to the fact that each one is kind of part of a pair, each summoning will result in two familiars," Ariana says as she scrolls through the document.

"Two?" Louise 2 says in almost astonishment. "That's-"

"We're breaking the rules enough as is, does it matter if we break it a little more?" Louise 1 points out.

"The greater our numbers the higher chance of success," Shana adds.

"While I agree, what do you mean that they're part of a pair?" I ask.

Ariana scratches her head, as if wondering how to respond. **_We'll you'll see when we summon most of them, but I guess I can try to explain. _**_Really now? Interesting._

"Well, I'll be honest, we've already kind of rigged the thing to have each of summon preselected familiars. Depending on who was summoned. how strong or powerful they were and how far away their native timeline is, the bigger the distortions that could be caused. Remember those? The things that can potentially unbalance a timeline and cause a complete spacial collapse? Yeah, we picked who showed up to try and avoid that. Now, for Louise, Louise and Shana, the ones you were set to summon had a partner of sorts that they work well with. I argued that splitting those teams up would do nothing but hurt us, so we were able to rig up a partner system of sorts."

"What about me?" I asked. "You said their familiars had partners but mine didn't."

"Well, she didn't. She had a trio, kind of, but we couldn't summon all three and were kind of pushing it with her as is, so we just picked someone else to fill out that gap."

_Come on! They get actual pairs and our's are picked at random? What the-_**_ Black Cat. Disgaea 4._**_ ... I love you. _**_Please hold all applause until after the summoning._**_ Saito. Summoning. Now._ 'Was I supposed to understand what those mean?' _Not at all!_ 'Oh good, I was worried for a second.'

"Soooo, any last questions?" Ariana asks

"Any last minute details you many have forgotten to mention?" I ask to make sure.

"Oh! Right! There was one!" Ariana says as she pounds her fist into her hand. "There is something! Since two of the group are married, a third's crushing hard on the husband and the fourth's crushing hard on her, we toyed with the system a bit. You still have to kiss the familiar to finish the contract, but you can just kiss them on the forehead or something, instead of the lips."

Ariana then smiles innocently, ignoring the massive redness that's spread over all four of our faces. Then she notices.

"Um... your faces are red." _Astute observation! We never would have guessed!_**_ Shut up!_**"W-was it something I said?"

"Nothing," I say, cutting off this line of conversation for the rest of time. "So who summons first?"

_Me! me! Me! Pickuspickuspickus! Ususus! Pick us! _

"Um... Shana? You wanna give it a shot?" Ariana asks.

_Damn it! This is because I mocked your captain obvious moment?_**_ No. You just kind of annoyed me with asking to be picked first._**_ Lesson learned._ 'Don't annoy angels.' _Unless you've got an EVA unit handy._ 'I got that reference! Finally you say something I understand!' _Joy upon joys! Sucks it won't be happening again, but whatever._

"Sure. I see no problem going first," Shana says as she stands up. "How exactly do I summon a familiar?"

After some briefing in the ways of witchcraft and familiar summoning, Shana is ready to perform.

"You know, if this doesn't work right we're blaming you. You know that, right Ariana?" I ask.

"If this doesn't work right you have every right to blame me," Ariana replies. "I was told this was completely possible, so it'd be my fault for believing them in the first place."

Shana proceeds onwards with the familiar summoning ritual and completes it. To everyone's shock and surprise, the portal does open. About seven feet in the sky, facing the ground.

...

"I'll be the first to admit I have no idea whether or not it's supposed to be like that," I say, breaking the silence.

"Agreed," Ariana says. "Louise? Any pointers?"

Louise 1 shakes her head. "It's been quite a while since I've seen a working summoning ritual, remember? What about you Louise?"

"Mine exploded," and with Louise 2's concise statement, we all go back to looking at the portal.

Just in time, as it turns out. As we look at the portal, we see two figures fall through it and hit the ground, a boy and a girl.

"Hey it worked!" Ariana exclaims. _Your grasp of the obvious is inspiring._**_ As is your dry wit._**

Within about a second of hitting the ground, the girl bolts to her feet, reaches under her skirt, _WHOA!_ And pulls out two pistols. _Ah man! Cocktease! _The girl then points the two pistols in the general direction of our group, her aim fluctuating between each of the members of the group here.

The girl seems a little short, around Shana's height. She had bright pinkish hair tied up in twintails that reached to her waist if not lower. Her eyes were the same color. The fact that she almost seemed to be growling or hissing at us, combined with her cat-like, almost fang-like, teeth gave off a sort of feline impression. Maybe she's part cat? Anyway, she was wearing what looked like some kind of school uniform, but I couldn't recognize where it was from. It was a white shirt with a red color, red sort of tie and a matching red skirt.

The guy's also gotten up, but unlike the girl, he isn't wielding any guns yet and seems instead to be wondering what the hell's going on. He was wearing an outfit not entirely dissimilar from the girls. Hey, inner monologue. Help me out. Is his hair black or a really dark blue? ... Inner monologue?

_Dude! Aria and Kinji! Shana summoned Aria and Kinji! Holy shit!_ 'I... Don't follow.' _I didn't expect you too, so I shall endeavor to explain! Aria and Kinji are two butei from Japan. They're high school student who go to a school designed specifically for training people into being butei because that's how they roll apparently. Aria is the descendant, I think great granddaughter or something like that, of Sherlock Holmes. _'Wait, the Sherlock Holmes? As in, greatest detective who ever lived?' _Well he's no Batman, but close enough. Yeah, that Sherlock. Kinji basically serves as her Watson, as well as a possible love interest. ... Basically there's no difference between the two pairs. _'Well... That's quite a bit to take in.'

"Who are you?" the girl known as Aria growls at us. "Where are we and how'd you bring us here?"

To her credit, Shana doesn't back down or show fear of any kind despite being faced with a gun at point blank range.

"Aria, just calm down for a minute and assess the situation first," the guy apparently known as Kinji tells her.

"Shut up Kinji!"

Love interest, huh? _It's one of those kinds of relationships._ 'I see. He has my sympathy.'

Instead of replying to either of them, Shana calmly pushes the guns away, steps forward and kisses Aria straight on. When she disconnects, Aria's left a sputtering wreck with the reddest face I've ever seen, and Shana takes the opportunity to make a move and kisses Kinji on the forehead.

Once Aria regains a shred of cognition, she opens her mouth then immediately freezes and looks at the back of her left hand. Kinji looks at the back of his left hand as well.

"You two are from Earth, right?" Shana begins. "If that is indeed the case, then I welcome you to this new world. You two have been summoned to be my familiars. I recognize that the term may not be instantly recognizable so basically, a familiar could best be summed up as a bodyguard of sorts and we are required to work together."

"A-and what was that for!" Aria exclaims. "The k-k-k-k-"

"The kiss was to seal the contract and finish the ritual," Shana explains. "Think of it like signing your name on a contract, except you don't exactly get a choice in the matter."

"So you kidnap us and force us into servitude?" Kinji asks. "What happens if we say no? Are we going to be killed and replaced?"

Shana shakes her head. "I could do that, but why would I? I won't just kill someone for no reason, and I'm not going to make an exception just because you two, completely understandably, don't quite like the situation you're in. However, if you were to go off on your own, how long do you think you'd survive? Any knowledge of Earth you may have is useless here. Any money? Useless. They wouldn't even have any your favorite foods here most likely."

At that, Aria's eyes widen. "Eh? You mean... There aren't any peach buns?"

I shake my head. "Sorry. Nothing of the sort. No peach buns, miso soup, nothing. Believe me, I've missed it too."

Aria looks at me with what almost appears to be fear in her eyes.

"Noooooooooo!" she cries into the sky.

'I... Can't tell if she's being serious or not.' _She probably is. The girl absolutely adores peach buns. As in, adores to the point of dreaming about them on occasion. _'I never knew someone could be so attached to a food product.'

Shana scoffs at Aria's reaction. "Heh. How could you be so heartbroken over not being able to eat that slop?"

Aria stops her brief tantrum long enough to glare at Shana. Kinji puts a palm to his face as if bracing for the incoming shitstorm.

"What. Did. You. Say?" Aria asks, punctuating each word with a venom I never thought possible from anyone.

"You heard me," Shana says, a cocky smile playing across her lips. "You honestly enjoy that garbage? You can honestly say you'd willingly eat that?"

"Of course!" Aria claims indignantly. "Peach buns are easily the greatest thing I've ever eaten!"

Shana laughs again. "You can claim that with a straight face? Let me ask a question. Have you ever tasted melon bread?"

_Oh dear._ 'Agreed. Even I can already see this going absolutely terribly.'

"I have," Aria answers. "What of it?"

"So you can claim that peach buns are the most tasteful thing ever after having tasted the delicacy that is melon bread?"

Now Aria laughs out loud, to the point of doubling over and clutching her stomach in a fit of laughter. Shana raises and eyebrow.

"What's so funny?" she asks.

"You- You are!" Aria says while trying to catch her breath. "You honestly claim that melon bread is good at all, let alone as good as peach buns?"

I can practically see the fires of hated roar in Shana's eyes. I look at Kinji.

"You might want to back up a bit," I warn him.

"I was about to recommend the same thing to you," he responds. We both take around five steps backwards.

"Did you just insult my melon bread?" Shana questions Aria, who now holds the cocky grin.

"That tasteless, melon flavored garbage? What else would I be insulting?" Aria asks.

"Melon bread shouldn't taste like melons!" Shana yells angrily. "That's heresy!"

"Doesn't something need to be a religion before insulting it can be labeled heresy?" Kinji asks.

"Don't question them," I tell him. "I value my life far to much, and I'm sure you're similar." We both shut up and watch the back and forth between the two girls. All of it related to bread preference. All of it climaxing with a good, hearty-

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

Yelled at each other by both arguing parties. 'You know, shouldn't you be madly cheering or something? You were always so damn enthused whenever Shana did that.'_ ... Huh! Oh sorry. I passed out from a mighty large fangasm._ 'Ew.' _I feel like I'm dreaming. _'Well watch the material of those dreams. Remember whose head your inside.'

After trading that particular little quip at each other, Aria and Shana just sort of stare each other down. They're both smiling, but it isn't a happy smile. It's the smile of two people who have come to a mutual agreement. That agreement being to murder each other over whose bread is better. You can feel the killing intent coming off of them. It's every bit as frightening as you'd imagine.

Then, no warning, the two girls leap at each other and start clawing and pulling at each other in what can only be describe as... _A catfight. A catfight between two of my idols. I am dreaming. Saito. Pictures. Now. I want to remember this forever._ 'One: no. Two: I don't even own a camera.' _Damn._

Let's ignore this for a bit and introduce ourselves to this guy.

"I'm Saito Hiraga. Just Saito's fine. Nice to meet you, Kinji, was it?" he nods. "Is she always like this?"

"Only if provoked," he responds. "Which does tend to happen when her favorite food is insulted."

"I can tell these two will be the best of friends," I remark.

"You too? Glad I wasn't the only one."

Then we just sort of watch the spectacle. 'I... Honestly can't tell. Are they just sort of fighting or are they genuinely trying to kill each other?' _It's a cat fight, there's no way of knowing until one of them draws blood. If they stop, then it's good. If they don't then we should probably step in._ 'Noted.'

Eventually Ariana looks at her phone, whether to check the time or something else is beyond me, presses a few buttons then gives it a wave. Aria and Shana have enough to look confused, then they both fall asleep in a heap on the floor.

"There," Ariana says as she puts her phone away. "Okay, who's next?"

_Us! Pick us!_

"I guess I'll go," Louise 1 says.

_Damn it! Get in line! _

"Hey, Saito," Kinji says.

"Yeah?"

"I guess I get the gist of the whole familiar bodyguard thing, but think you could maybe explain in a bit more detail?"

"I can try," I respond. "Basically, you are now in the continent of Halkegnia which can be broken up into four kingdoms: Tristain, Albion, Gallia, and Romalia, but that's all not really important. As stated, you and your peach bun loving friend were summoned by that girl, Shana, who is a flame haze. Flame hazes are basically dimensional bounty hunters that kill off eldritch abominations from a parallel world that feast on a human's very existence thereby erasing said human from everyone's memory. She's from Earth, but not your Earth and not my Earth. See, you, me and Shana are all from a different timeline or possibility of Earth. I was summoned by Louise to be her familiar a while back-"

"Which one's Louise?" Kinji asks.

"The pink haired one."

"Again, which one? There's two pink haired girls here. Three if you count Aria."

"Both," before he can get a chance to explain I continue. "See, I was summoned by Louise, then there was some weird time warp and I got summoned by Louise again, then we both got pulled into this version of events where Louise summoned Shana instead of me, and see that white haired girl right there?"

"Yeah?"

"She's an angel that came to warn us about a really powerful threat that's going to eat this universe or something, so we're all summoning up new familiar's to help combat that threat. That about sum things up?"

Kinji's silent for a moment. "It's weird. I want to say after the gun fight with Sherlock Holmes I was pretty much convinced things couldn't get any weirder. Now this happens, and I'm somehow not shocked. I guess things were bound to get this weird eventually."

_It can always get weirder is something I tell myself to make sure I'm always looking forward to what comes next._

"Life does have a habit of throwing curveballs out of nowhere. Like... Gun fight with Sherlock Holmes? How does that work?" I ask.

Kinji winces. Must not be a good memory. "Remind me to tell you about that later. For now, it looks like we have company."

I look and notice that Louise 1 has finished the summoning ritual, probably the contract too, and is currently conversing with the two she apparently summoned. Again, it was a guy and a girl. The girl seemed kind of short. She had long blonde hair, tied up in twin tails kind of like Aria. She was wearing a shirt with some anime character I don't recognize on it, along with a bluish skirt. The guy next to her is taller then her by about a head, and has bluish hair and is wearing what looks like either a business suit, or a tuxedo.

'Okay, who are they?' _It's Nagi and Hayate! _'Good. now please explain who they are.' _Gladly, though admittedly I am a little outdated on these two. Nagi is her family's sole heir to their millions of yen, she's loaded. As such, she's lived in her giant mansion with her maid Maria, her... dude Klaus, and her pet tiger._ 'Pet tiger?' _I tell no lies! Unless it benefits me. And honestly, how could I be benefited by lying about her pet tiger?_ 'True enough. And Hayate?' _He's her butler and possibly the unluckiest son of a bitch in the world. Also, that phrase was picked very specifically. His parents are complete monsters who I really don't like going into detail about because it pisses _me_ off. Me._ 'It can't be that bad.'_ They ran up a debt of over 100 million yen and payed it off by selling Hayate to the Yakuza. _'... Okay, that's pretty bad.' _Anyway, In need of some cash, he tried his luck at kidnapping someone and selling them for ransom. His target, picked completely at random? Nagi._ 'This is definitely interesting. Please continue.' _Gladly. Hayate then proceeded to fight off some thugs that were thinking of kidnapping Nagi, then politely extend the offer for her to be willingly kidnapped by him which he failed at so miserably that she took it as a love confession. Then Nagi got kidnapped by I think it was the same thugs who then drove off. Hayate borrowed a bike from Maria, Nagi's maid in case you forgot, outran the car and saved her. He was then hired by Nagi to be her butler. Also she's kind of hitting on him. _'I don't even know what to say about any of that. It's sad... and kind of hilarious.' _It most definitely is._

"So, you two are the new summons?" I ask when they approach the group.

Nagi nods her head enthusiastically.

"Do you know exactly what's going on?" Kinji asks.

"Yeah," Hayate replies. "At least I think so."

"It's like something out an anime or manga!" Nagi cries out in joy.

_Oh yeah, she loves those things. _'So this is pretty much a dream come true for her.' _Big time._

"Introduction time then?" I ask.

"My name is Nagi Sanzen'in," Nagi says with a bow.

"I'm her butler, Hayate Ayasaki."

"A pleasure to meet you," they both say with a bow.

"Kinji Touyama."

"Saito Hiraga."

And so introductions went around for everyone. Even Aria and Shana, who had woken up when that spell wore off. They weren't happy.

"We don't have to worry about you two trying to off each other, do we?" I ask them.

Aria pouts and looks away. "Even if her taste in food is stupid, it doesn't look like I have any choice."

Shana pouts and looks the other way. "Despite her not being smart enough to realize how good melon bread is, she is technically my familiar so I have no choice but to work with her."

"What's with them?" Nagi asks.

"Milady, perhaps it's best we not ask," Hayate suggests.

"Oh good, you're smart," Kinji points out. "Hopefully that makes things easier."

"Okay, Louise 2, wanna go next?" Ariana asks.

"Sure."

_Damn it! You're doing this to spite me, aren't you girl?_**_ Only partially. _**_That's still a yes! _**_No, it's only a partial yes. Quite different from a regular yes. _**'Well, when it's put _that_ way.'

So then Louise 2 did the ritual and summoned forth another two people. A guy and a girl. _...Taiga and Ryuji? I mean... Don't get me wrong, it's neat and all that we've got the package deal, so to speak, but seriously? At least Hayate can kick some ass, and Aria and Kinji are highly trained in the art of ass-kicking. These two are completely normal! _**_In the defense of whoever picked them, so was Saito. _**'True. I distinctly remember having to work to get to a point where I could do anything incredibly useful. Even then it's mostly the Gandalfar runes carrying me through.' _Yeah. Let's _not_ imagine how badly we'd be screwed if you ever lost those magical abilities. _

Since it's pretty much the same thing, I don't think I need to spend time telling you how Taiga and Ryuji's introductions went. "Who're you?" "The one who needs to make out with you to make you badass enough to deal with a universe ending threat." "Oh. 'Kay. That's cool." "Awesome. Introduce yourself to everyone please."

"Okay, Saito! You're up!" Ariana calls.

_'Bout damn time! C'mon Saito, let's show 'em who's boss!_

"Just to make sure, it's as simple as trying to open the portal, right?" I ask, just to make sure.

"As simple as opening any inter dimensional summoning gate is," Alastor assures me.

"Oh, good. I was worried for a second."

"Just give it your best shot and I'm sure you'll do fine," Louise 1 tells me.

_Who cares about shots? Show. Road. Get on it._ 'I appreciate your encouragement as well.' _As you should._

In any case, here goes nothing. Say a few words, focus all my existence- _power of existence._ Same thing. Focus all my _power of_ existence to one point, and try to expand it into a portal of some kind. _Aaaaaaaand, now! _

I did my best to mold the energy into something, and I was successful in creating a familiar summoning portal. _Booyah! We kick ass! _'_I_ kick ass, you mean. I'm the one who made the portal.' _I'm the one who gave you the moral support to create that portal!_ 'I'm choosing not to respond to that.' **_Good call._**_ Shut up. _**_No thank you._**

"Okay, so the portal's up, now I just wait for my two familiars to show up?"

Ariana nods. "Um... Yeah. They should be arriving any second."

On cue, two girls walk through the portal. The one of the left looks no older then eight or nine. She has long blonde hair and seems to like the color black if the color of her shirt and skirt are any indication. The one on the right seems to be wearing what looks like yet another school uniform style of clothing. _Hey, the executives call for those kinds of outfits, they're huge with the Japanese fans._ 'I know that.'

"Oh great, where am I now?" The one of the right asks aloud.

'Before we answer that, intros please?' _On the left we have Eve. An adorable little girl who was created to be a living weapon and can morph any part of her body into various different implements. Blades, hammers, shields, wings, a mermaid tail, spoons, things like that. _'... Spoons.' _No one ever said awesome powers ever needed to be used for awesome things._ 'Can't argue with that.' _Anyway, like I said, Eve was created to be a weapon, had a pretty shit childhood, and is... was? Whatever. Prior to being here she goes around with two sweepers and helps them out. _'By choice or-" _No, no, no. She loves them. Not loves loves, but they're the closest thing she's ever had to a family. They're nice guys too._ 'Well, it could have been worse. And the one on the right?' _Fuka Kazamatsuri! She'll kick your ass if you let her! Just BOOM! Right in the head with a baseball bat! She enjoys going around the netherworld with her friends, a vampire who loves sardines, a werewolf, death, an angel completely different from Ariana, and her demon sister created by her dad. _'... What?' _Yeah, it does kind of sound weird when I say it out loud. Point is, she can kick ass when she needs too. She succeeded in taking over the world! I think!_ 'You think.' _Well, what she did after that is no business of mine. _'Well, all in all, I have to thank you for your rather detailed knowledge of all these people. It's a bit creepy how much you know, but whatever.' _No, it's creepy how much the internet connection in your head knows. _That's_ the really scary thing._

"You two are currently at the Tristain Academy of Magic where we have summoned you forth to act as my familiars while we combat a potentially universe ending threat," I tell the two. "Are you in?"

There's silence from the two.

"Oh, I get it!" Fuka says. "This is another dream, isn't it!"

"Dream?" Louise 1 asks.

"Well obviously!" Fuka says. "I mean, academy of magic? Universe ending threat? It's almost as out there as the netherworld!"

"And you're sure you're alright in the head?" Kinji asks.

*CRACK*

"Ow!" Kinji exclaims as he grabs his head and struggles to remain conscious in the wake of being hit with a baseball bat.

"I am perfectly in my right mind!" Fuka tells us as she rests the bat on her shoulder. "It's usually everyone else around me who's insane."

I look around. Two time travelers, a mage, a hunter of otherworldly existence eaters, two butei one of whom has gun dueled Sherlock Holmes, a rich girl and her butler, two high school students, a living weapon, a voice in my head, and an angel.

"Okay, I'm not going to deny that," I concede.

Oddly enough, everyone else nods their agreement.

"Hmph. Whatever. So what's this about a familiar thing?" Fuka says.

"It's simple. We finish the contract, you become more able to kick ass. Simple enough?" I propose.

Fuka thinks about it. "Fine. It's just another dream anyway, so might as well play along."

That makes things easier. Since we got Fuka's permission, we might as well ask Eve as well. I turn to her and kneel down so I can look her in the eye.

"Hi. What's your name?" Ignoring the fact that the voice in my head already told me all I need to know. ... It saddens me that I have the proper context with which to say that statement. _You should never be saddened to have me!_ I don't feel better.

"Eve," she tells me.

"You heard everything I said about the familiar contract, right?" I ask.

Eve nods. "It sounds interesting. You all seem nice enough. I'd like to help if I could."

"Good girl," I say, giving into the urge to give her a pat on the head.

"Okay, so what do we do to finish this thing?" Fuka asks.

"Firstly, you promise not to hit me with that baseball bat."

"Why?" Fuka asks. "I guess it doesn't matter. Fine, I'll do my best to not hit you."

Good enough. I take that opportunity to give Eve a quick peck on the forehead, then move quickly and give Fuka a quick kiss on the forehead as well.

*SMASH*

***Scene Break***

"I said I was sorry!" Fuka complains.

"You also said you wouldn't hit me, and that worked out so well," I reply.

"C'mon! I said I'd do my best! It was a reflex."

"Saito, are you sure you're okay?" Eve asks me.

"Just fine, thanks for asking."

"Okay, everyone's here and conscious!" Ariana exclaims. "Ehem. Okay, let's recap. What do all the new people here currently know about the situation so far?"

"We were brought here to serve as familiars," Aria begins.

"Which are basically bodyguards, or additional help," Kinji says.

"We get awesome magical abilities!" Nagi exclaims.

"And have to use it to fight some really evil thing that wants to destroy the universe," Hayate says nervously.

"As such, we were brought here to help out," Taiga says.

"Not sure how, considering me and Taiga are completely normal compared to everyone else," Ryuji adds.

"Then we'll be here to pick up the slack!" Fuka exclaims. "Once we beat that thing this dream's over and I can go home!"

"We'll help in whatever way we can," Eve finishes.

"Perfect!" Ariana says happily. "Okay, like Nagi said, you all do have some kind of ability, now that the familiar ritual is complete. In a nutshell, you can use any weapon you touch or have on you with expertise you may have never known! But, that doesn't help when you don't have any weapons."

"I have my pistols!" Aria says, brandishing said pistols.

"My bat does just fine against even the toughest demons!" Fuka adds.

"Are bats even considered a weapon?" Louise 1 asks.

"It's a chunk of wood!" Louise 2 counters.

"Aren't your wands pretty much the same thing?" Ryuji asks.

Louise 2 pauses. "W-well yes, but. ... Shut up."

"Aaaanyway," Ariana says, trying to get the attention back. "The ability to use weaponry isn't very good unless you have weaponry. As such, I'm working on getting everyone what we can. Obviously some of you already have some stuff, so you don't need to worry. Everyone without some kind of weapon, don't worry I'm working on getting some things for you. Don't expect anything too fancy. I can't get fancy equipment and get it quickly, and time is of the essence when the world's going to end."

"What are you trying to say?" Taiga asks.

"I'll be gone for... Another week? Maybe less," Ariana explains. "Until then, just try and get used to living here. After everyone's armed to the teeth, we can start properly preparing. I'll be back as soon as possible. Bye everyone!"

And with that, Ariana turns and runs off, leaving us all on our own.

"Okay, I think you can remove the seal, Shana," Louise 1 tells her.

Shana nods, and snaps, then everything starts moving again.

"Now, before we do anything, we have two major problems we need to concern," Louise 2 points out.

"What's that?" Eve asks.

"How are we going to explain all of you spontaneously showing up, and where are we all going to sleep? Our bed's full enough as it is," Louise 1 tells the group.

We all stop and ponder.

"I have no earthly idea," I respond.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author Notes:**

Sorry, this took a while. Sixth months to be exact. Next chapter won't take that long, I swear. The hard part was that I didn't really know what to do with this story. A problem I have with pretty much all of my stories is that I know the beginning and the end of my stories, those are almost always in my head from the start. Everything in between? Not so much. It's like have a treasure map that has "You are here" and a "X" to mark the end spot, and the middle is "Figure it out for yourself." I think I'll be able to work a bit faster in this story because I figured out a sort of structure I want. Five chapters, ammos, shots, whatever you want to call them, then a reload chapter. That's not how it worked in Aria, chapters were called ammo with the exception of volume 5 which has two pierce chapters followed by three reloads and an epilogue, but I kind of like how it sounds. Empty the shots, then reload. I'm aiming for three reloads for a total of anywhere from 18 to 21 chapters. That's the plan, but it could change at any moment. The plan is also to update my stories far more often, but we'll see if that works.

Enough about that, let's talk about the actual chapter. Sorry it might not be that good considering how long I took on it. I kind of wanted to do this chapter to get all the character informed about each other, which is part of why the viewpoint changes so often. Saito will probably be the main POV like in the preceding stories, but I thought it would be nice to see things from everyone else's view as they talk with their new little group. The splitting into group thing came from the fact that I really don't like having 12+ characters together in the same room partaking in the same conversation. It can be kind of hard to right. Splitting into four groups of three wound up working much better. I think that's about it, see you next time, which hopefully won't take so long.

**Second Ammo: Not the weirdest academy ever, but good enough!**

We decided to deal with the details behind a small army's worth of new faces showing up at a later date. The Louises, Shana and I decided that the first priority on our list should be getting all the new team members adjusted to the academy here, so we'd split up and group together with our new familiars and get everyone up to speed on their new situation as well as let them tell us a little about themselves. Louise 1 left with Nagi and Hayate, Louise 2 with Taiga and Ryuji, Shana with Aria and Kinji and myself with Eve and Fuka.

"So, it's an academy designed to teach kids magic and stuff like that?" Fuka asked at the start of the tour.

I nod. "It's designed to help the noble's kids discover their magic and hone their abilities. So yeah, it's like school back home but with magic and stuff."

Fuka nods as if confirming something. "That makes things easier."

"Why's that Miss Fuka?" Eve asks.

"I was a teacher at an academy in the netherworld before, this is stuff I know how to deal with," Fuka says, a proud smile crawling onto her face.

"Aren't you a bit young for a teacher? I don't know many schools that would hire people like you," I ask. _She doesn't seem the type._ 'Wait, you didn't know that?' _I don't know everything! Shit man, I'm not omniscient! _'Could have fooled me. And what netherworld has an academy?'

"The ad said that anyone who felt they were qualified could show up, so I did," Fuka replies. "After I beat the interviewers into the ground, they had no choice but to hire us!"

"Beat them into the ground?" I ask.

"Us?" Eve asks.

_I like Eve's observation better._ 'I'm more concerned with the first question though. Besides, didn't you mention something about her little posse? I don't quite feel like asking about it because I'm far too scared to find out.'

"Yeah, us," Fuka affirms. "Me and Desco. My little sister from the last dream I had."

"You said that when you were summoned too. You really think this is a dream?" I ask her.

"Of course!" She tells me. "You would honestly think that a trip through the netherworld could be anything but a dream? And this is just as ridiculous! World ending threat? A group weird people assembled to stop it? It's obviously a dream!"

"Saito, I think she's in denial," Eve whispers to me as Fuka continues ranting.

"I know Eve. I know."

***Louise 1 POV***

"So you're a time traveller?" Nagi asks me as we walk around the academy to get acquainted with the new environment.

"Not by choice," I tell her. "I tried a teleport spell I have almost no experience with, and then me and Saito were accidentally brought into this world with Louise and Shana."

"You seem oddly okay with it," Hayate points out.

I shrug. "I'm not necessarily used to it, per se, but it's not like I didn't know it could happen. Saito's a good example of that."

"He's done stuff like that before?" Nagi asks. Her tone makes it sound like she _really_ wants details.

"When I summoned him way back when I first summoned a familiar, he claimed that he was from the future and that I had already summoned him before. That the summoning apparently reached to both different worlds and different times. I mean, I know it can happen, I've kind of experienced it myself, though it was form a flunked teleport spell and not a summoning spell. It's still weird to think that such a simple ritual that a 10 year old could perform is really so..."

"Powerful?" Nagi offers.

"All-encompassing?" Hayate offers.

"Odd," I say. I nod in satisfaction. "That's it. It's so odd. It's supposed to just summon an animal with a similar alignment to the caster. I understand that Void is an iffy part of the pentagram of magical elements, but summoning a human should be enough. To summon from a different planet and time?"

"What's a void?" Nagi asks. "We're from Earth, we don't have magic there, we don't know what you're talking about!"

"Right. Sorry. I'm used to being around people who know what I'm talking about, so it slipped my mind that you're new to this and don't know what I'm talking about. This may take a bit, so let me explain. You see, there's five elements in existence, fire, water, earth, wind, and void..."

***Louise 2 POV***

"So you two are high school students?" I ask.

Ryuji nods. "School back home was a little different then school here. We didn't have magic for one, so that's new."

"You seem rather calm with this, if that's the case," I respond.

Taiga mumbles something, but I don't quite catch it.

"Excuse me? I didn't hear you."

"We get to go home after this is over anyway, right?" Taiga says. "No point in being upset about it when we're going home once we've dealt with the threat."

"That's one way of looking at it, I suppose," I reply. "Since this is the time for it, do you two have any questions? Regarding anything?"

The two look at the back of their left hand, then hold it up to show me their Gandalfar runes.

"The runes? There really isn't much too them. They mark you as my familiar, as well as increasing your combat abilities when you wield a weapon."

"We're high school students, we have no experience with weapons."

"Well, neither did Saito, but apparently it helped him. I don't know, I wasn't there. Shana already had a lot of experience with using her sword before I summoned her, so I'm not really all that sure how it works. Considering the other familiars we have, I don't think we have to worry too much even if all the runes do is make you move faster."

"Would a wooden sword even count as a weapon?" Taiga wonders. "That's all I have any experience with, and I doubt that would help at all."

"You're scary enough with that as is, I don't think we have nothing to worry about."

"Shut up Ryuji."

***Shana POV***

"So, simply put, you're some kind of inter-dimensional bounty hunter?" Kinji asks me as I sum up what it means to be a flame haze.

"That's not technically inaccurate, but that is really simplifying it," I tell him.

"I think police force would probably be a bit more accurate," Aria says. "Not so much hunting for them so much as punishing those breaking the rules."

"That is a much more accurate description," Alastor says.

"Still can't get over the talking necklace," Kinji says.

"Pendant, technically," I correct. "It's an easy mistake to make, I'll admit, like calling a nodachi a katana, but the two are still different. And Alastor isn't a talking pendant, the pendant is simply how he communicates to the outside world."

"Still not something I'll get used to easily."

"This is the time for asking question, isn't it?" Aria asks, to which I nod in affirmation. "Then let me ask what's with this situation? Why are there two of Louise and why were we brought here anyway? How are we supposed to help with against something that could destroy the universe?"

"They could just be twins, Aria. And didn't the white haired girl that was here say it was only a world ending threat? That isn't _as_ bad," Kinji says.

"Shut up Kinji, they're practically the same thing. And there's no way they're twins," Aria tells him. "Why would they have the same name? Or way of speaking and similar body language? They're far too similar in every way to be just twins."

"Good call. There was only one Louise, but the other Louise and Saito were brought here on accident from the future, or an alternate timeline," I explain to the both of them. "I honestly don't quite know the details myself, something about a teleportation spell gone wrong. As for why you're here, I don't know myself. Ariana mentioned a few things about distortions and unbalanced timelines, but it's something I don't understand. I don't usually deal with parallel words or other related things, you understand."

"So then why us specifically?" Kinji asks. "What do those distortions have to do with why we were brought here?"

"Like I said, I don't understand either," I reply. "If the threat really is as bad as Ariana made it sound, I see no reason you'd be able to help."

"Don't insult us!" Aria yells, seemingly ready for another fight. I don't know why, It's already obvious I'd win.

"As much as you may deserve it, no, I'm not insulting you. Simply making an observation," I tell her.

Aria doesn't seem amused, but puts it past her. "Whatever. So this familiar contract thing... It's like a forced amica contract?"

"Amica contract?"

"A two person team where a younger butei undergoes intense training under his or her senior for a year," Aria explains.

"Hmm. They are kind of similar in a way. Obviously the familiar contract doesn't last for only a year, and training isn't strictly necessary, probably due to the familiar likely not being a mage of any kind and is usually an animal. Still, I can see how you'd think they're similar."

Aria nods to herself in satisfaction. "I see. This should be easy to deal with then I have plenty of experience with having an amica contract."

"I do too, but I highly doubt that kind of experience would help. I suppose it's nice to have," Kinji adds. "There certainly are weirder things to have experience with."

***Meanwhile***

"And the Founder Brimir, the original wielder of void magic, led a crusade against the elves, the wielders of the ancient magic, which allows them to cast without the need of a wand or any other type of magical artifact that all other mages make use of when casting spells. Of course that's only for this world. Shana is capable of performing her own impressive feats, like creating fire and stopping time without a wand and has even taught Saito, an ordinary human, how to create a simple fireball. Well I suppose being able to spontaneously create fire really isn't that simple when you think about it, but I digress. As I was saying, Brimir used his void magic to lead a crusade against the elves, though of course there was obviously far more to it then that. You see, Brimir..."

"Hayate?"

"Yes, milady?"

"She's still going."

"Yes, she is. She's quite knowledgable about these topics it seems."

"Do you think she'll stop anytime soon?"

"Honestly? No. We'll probably be here a while."

"How long has it been?"

"A few hours maybe?"

"Should we be taking notes? Is this going to be on the test?"

"I don't think you need to worry about that, milady."

"Hmmmmm. Oh!"

"What is it milady?"

"I found a deck of cards in my pocket. Wonder where these came from. ... Know any good card games?"

***Louise 2 POV***

"If you don't mind me asking, how do you two know each other?" I asked Taiga and Ryuji.

"Huh?" They both seem surprised by the question.

"I mean, this is the time for us to trade information and get each other up to speed, right? I've told you two about what you're doing here and stuff like that, so would you mind telling me about you two before you came here?"

The two look at each other, then shrug.

"What's there to tell?" Ryuji wonders aloud. "We're not really anything special. Just two high school students."

"... That's it? Just students?"

They nod.

"... Nothing? No-out-of the-ordinary occurrences? No fighting supernatural beings trying to eat humans?"

The shake their heads.

"Wow, I just realized how much Louise must have been disappointed when she first summoned Saito."

"Are you insulting us?" Taiga asks.

"No, just saying. I mean, my first familiar was Shana, so that may have colored my thoughts on what to expect from the summoning," I clarify. "I mean, you've got a super powerful girl that hunts down those things that eat people's existence. Then we've got high school students. Just a touch disappointing, wouldn't you think?"

"I guess," Taiga concedes. "Still not sure how I feel about being considered a disappointment."

"It's something you learn to live with," I tell her.

***Kinji POV***

"Seriously? How on Earth can you say that?"

"Easy, like this! Peach buns taste terrible!"

"I bet you've never even tried a good one, have you? You've probably only eaten second hand peach buns and decided 'oh, that's awful, they must all taste like that.' That's what you did, isn't it?"

"Maybe it is, but why should it matter? Garbage is garbage, no matter who makes it!"

"Oh, that's good. I don't need to state my opinion on that melon flavored trash you're so fond of."

"Real melon bread doesn't taste like melon! It's the appearance that gives it it's name, not the flavor!"

"Then what's the point of calling it melon bread?!"

"What's the point of calling them peach buns?"

"They look like peaches, obviously!"

"Oh, and yet melon bread isn't allowed to be called that on appearances alone, yet your slop can?"

*Schwing*

*Crash*

Ah, that one would bet the sound of Aria's twin kodachi colliding with Shana's nodachi. I wonder where she pulled that sword out of. Or the coat for that matter. Maybe she keeps it up her shirt like Aria? I believe Louise, don't know which one, said something about the familiars that are summoned being the most compatible with the summoner before we left. I can see why.

"So, it looks like I'll have to convert you by force, melonhead."

"I suppose there's nothing wrong with beating some sense into my familiar, peach lover."

*Schwing*

*Ching*

*Crash*

*Fwoosh*

... Let's hope that the magic in this world extends to fireproofing the hallways. It'd suck to burn down the entire school on our first day here. I wonder if my bulletproof cabinet back home is fireproof? I never tested that, but it sure would be nice to have about now.

Shana, the mad melon warrior.

The fighting peach bun lover, Aria.

This kind of monsterous battle, can a normal high school student like me stop it?

The answer is obviously NO.

That's why... I... Decide to turn around and walk away, escaping from this impossible reality. If you want, call me a spineless guy. Do as you please. But wouldn't anyone cherish his own life?

***Saito POV***

"So your father made you demon sisters to make your childhood wish come true?" Eve asks Fuka as she finishes explaining her family... "complications." _And the award for understatement of the year goes to..._

"Yeah," Fuka confirms. "I don't know why he thought anyone would want a demon for a sister. Seriously! Doesn't really matter, I suppose, what with it being a dream. I mean, what father would make a tentacled demon for his little girl? There's no way such a thing could happen. Ergo, dream."

She's really hung up on that. Maybe it's a coping mechanism to allow her to keep denying the fact that she's technically dead and supposed to be an exploding penguin? _Certainly one of the most inventive coping mechanisms. Most would just try to forget, or hug their blanket and cry in a corner for a few months. Or explode, as prinnys are won't to do._

"Still, if you got past the demon thing she was pretty cool," Fuka admits. "I am going to miss her, but you can't keep dreaming forever, no matter how interesting it may be. Hasn't stopped my dreams from being really long, but that doesn't matter I suppose."

"I personally think dreams are highly overrated," I offer. "Reality can be so much weirder, if what's going on is any indication."

"I like dreams," Eve offers. ... And then stops, because there's nothing left to offer. "Saito?"

"Yes, Eve?"

"Is there a library in this academy?"

"Yeah, a rather sizable one. You like reading, Eve?"

She nods. "I do. A lot."

"Well, it's getting late so I don't think I could show it to you today, so how about we head back to the room where we'll all be staying and then visit the library tomorrow?"

Eve smiles and nods. "That would be nice."

"Where are we staying anyway?" Fuka asks. "The academy have things like this happen often and have guest rooms readilly available?"

"Sadly no. We're all going to have to stay in Louise's room. Don't know how we're going to do that with how many people there are, but we're going to figure something out," I tell her. "Follow me."

When we got back to Louise's room we actually had the luck to bump into Louise 2, Taiga and Ryuji.

"There you are," Louise 2 says. "Anyone else with you?"

"Nope. Just us," I tell her. "You see them?"

She shakes her head. "We just got here and decided to wait for everyone else outside, since we figured they'd have to show up eventually."

"Oh, there's everyone else."

We turn and see Kinji walking up to us.

"Where's Shana and... What was her name?" Louise 2 asks.

"She and Aria are a bit busy," Kinji offers.

"Busy with what?" Taiga asks.

*BOOM*

"They're have a little chat," Kinji offers.

*BOOM*

"A... chat?" Taiga doesn't seem very reassured.

"They'll be done shortly," Kinji reaffirms. "Where's the other half of the group?"

"You didn't see Louise, Nagi or Hayate on the way over?" Ryuji asks.

"Nope."

***Meanwhile***

"And that brings us to my father, the Duke de la Valliere, who is the illegitimate son of a royal family member, which means I do partially share in the royal bloodline, thus explaining why I can use void..."

"Got any threes?"

"Go fish. Hayate?"

"Yes, milady?"

"Why are you so bad at this game?"

"... Luck of the draw, milady."

***Saito POV***

"Well, I'm sure they'll all catch up eventually," Kinji says.

"That being the case, how is sleeping going to work?" Taiga asks. "Louise told us about how there's only one bed. And some hay."

"... Anyone wanna call dibs on the hay?" I nervously ask. Silence. "Yeah, didn't think so. Worth a shot. By the way, where's Siesta? Don't we need a place for her to sleep?"

"Who's Siesta?" Eve asks.

"Our maid," Louise 2 explains. "And don't worry, she went home for a week or two on vacation. She told us this already, don't you remember?"

"No. That's why I'm asking. Makes things a bit easier for a bit though."

"Well, we have how many people, twelve total?" Fuka asks.

"The bed can hold three, so that's nine people left to take care of," I make a note of. "I suppose the room can hold everyone, it's just most people will have to sleep on the floor until we can buy some futons or something like that. How do we decide the three who get the bed until we can get some more bedding?"

"Anyone have some paper and something to write with?" Ryuji asks.

"Um... Yeah, I think I have some in my room, I'll be right back," Louise 2 says as she disappears into her room for a few moments and comes back with some paper, a quill and an ink bottle in hand.

Ryuji takes the supplies and does a headcount of the people here. He tears the paper into seven even strips and then marks three of them with a star. He folds the papers so that the star isn't visible, cups them in his hands and shakes to mix them up. He assumes he doesn't need to explain what he just did, so he doesn't and just holds the papers in his hands for us to take. We all take a paper and then unfold them to see who gets the bed.

In this case, the lucky winners were Eve, Fuka and Taiga, who are lucky enough to get the bed, while everyone else just grabs a piece of floor. Yay. _I feel we should have expected something like this. I blame you._ 'I blame you.'

That problem dealt with, at least for tonight, we all head into the room and claim our spots in the room. We debated whether or not to wait for everyone else to arrive, but decided that they'd be back eventually, no need to worry, let's just hope the academy's still standing tomorrow.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author Notes:**

Well this chapter sucked. Sorry if you're reading this first and I spoiled it for you, but I'm not entirely pleased with how this one came out. And yet, I don't care because now I can finally start working on the actual plot as opposed to plodding about doing nothing and getting nothing accomplished. Huzzah!

Irregardless, what happened this chapter? Everyone got their weapons, time froze and the Snake of the Festival appeared to the party for the first time. The weapons weren't quite as extravagant as I initially wanted, but I was pressed for time and it doesn't matter because I armed Nagi with an infinite ammo M60, and that's all that matters. As for the whole issue of time being frozen, I don't think I need to tell you that the Snake of the Festival isn't quite that capable. That would happen to be the favor that Louise called in when she was talking with the Snake.

Oh yeah, mismatched eyes has a name. If you haven't read the "revised" portions of The Crimson Familiar, or either of the two chapter of The New Familiar where she appeared under the alias Arturia... now you know her. And her name's Louise. Why is her name Louise when we already have two Louises? I dunno, it sounded nice. Also there was another girl with cat ears who appeared in the "revised" epilogue of The Crimson Familar. She was also named Louise. That one does have a reason, but we'll get to that. For now, why is mismatched eyes Louise working with the Snake? What's this about being his carrier? And saving his life? Tune in next time for the answer to... I don't know, maybe one or two of those questions? I'm winging the hell out of this story, but I don't care because I'm having so much fun writing it so let's chug on ahead!

Okay, anything else? Maybe a brief word of Ariana? Yeah, if the whole "shoot on sight thing" didn't tip you off, she has an odd history. How odd? Odd enough to achieve the third highest bounty in all of recorded history in her angel homeworld. Second place goes to Nat, and first goes to the Sophia chick she mentioned. What an interesting crew. I should write a prequel story around them. Except that would be stupid. I'm rambling again. I can't think of anything else to say, so I guess we're done here. Let me know what you think. See you next time.

**Third Ammo: Lock and Load!**

"So, this is where they're all staying, is it?"

"Yeeeep. Academy of Magic, right there, Mr. Snake."

"Now, explain to me. Why did you show me this place?" the Snake of the Festival asked.

"You wanted to know where to find them," the girl with mismatched eyes sitting next to him answered. "Now you know where they are. You still can't go and attack them. Or meet them. Or do anything to them. Really it might just be better if you forget they stay here so you don't run into the temptation of doing anything."

"And why would that be?" the Snake asks.

*Thwip*

"Did you just flick me?" the Snake asks, a hand to his forehead.

"Dummy," the girl tells him with a frown. "I'm your carrier, not your brain, I shouldn't have to think for you. You're still not a fixed existence. You're barely strong enough to manifest properly, and don't remind me about that thing at Alhambra castle, you're lucky you still exist after that! Regardless, considering where you are now, you wouldn't even be able to set up a seal, which means whatever you plan on doing when you meet them won't be private. When things go badly for you or them, I'm not going to pretend to know the outcome, you'll have a whole academy's worth of mages breathing down your neck! Sometimes I wonder how you managed to accomplish anything when you go and pull things like that."

"Forgive me, I'm not used to this kind of partnership," the Snake apologizes.

"What, never worked with a little girl before?" the girl taunts.

"I usually prefer to work with people I know can be trusted to do what's required," the Snake replies.

"Ah, you don't wanna trust little old me?" the girl taunts again. "What's not to trust?"

"I like to at least know the names of the people who hold my life in their hands," the Snake replies.

"Geez. People are so suspicious these days," the girl complains. "Isn't it supposed to be all, 'Oh! Thank you for saving my life, how can I repay you since I'm sure you had no other reason for possibly doing such a kind thing since people just that saintly?' Boggles the mind."

"Indeed," the Snake replies dryly. "Now then. I suppose I simply go back to waiting for you to allow me to do anything."

"Not my fault you're so bad at absorbing energy," the girl pouts.

"And it isn't my fault you're so terrible at giving energy," the Snake replies.

"Jerk. No one can just accept anything anymore. Whatever. It's not my fault nobody seems to grasp the mechanics around their own existence. Not that I'm necessarily innocent of something like that myself. By the way, it's Louise."

"Hmm?"

"My name. It's Louise."

"Now why does that sound familiar?" the Snake asks.

"Shut up. ... Okay, look. I'll cut you a deal," Louise says. "I know someone who might be able to help and owes me a favor or two. I'll call her and see if she can set something up for you. Just give me a little bit of time to call in that favor."

"I look forward to it," the Snake says, a grin stretching across his face. "Please don't keep me waiting."

"Like I said, shouldn't take to long," Louise says. "She's not too hard to contact. Once she's ready you can go do whatever you want to them."

"I intend to."

***Saito POV***

It's been a little bit since we summoned up all the new helpers, all of whom adapted to the academy a lot faster then I might have thought they would. If you're wondering how we explained all these people showing up out of nowhere and hanging around me, Shana and the Louises... we didn't. Nobody asked or even batted an eye. If I didn't know any better, I'd almost say they were expecting something like this to happen. I asked Kirche about it, since it was starting to drive me mad.

"Well, it's not like it's the first time it's happened. You showed up, didn't you?"

_She did state a perfectly valid point. _'Yeah, but when me and Louise showed up we at least came up with an excuse.' _...Maybe we didn't need to?_

Not really wanting to believe that the voice in my head actually might have a point, I decided to bring this up with some of the people it concerns, my familiars.

"I don't know, it sounds like she has a pretty good point," Fuka replied when I raised the point as the three of us sat at a table in the courtyard of the academy.

"People adapt to strange situations rather quickly. You could have just said you were a friend of Louise," Eve added before sticking her nose back in her book.

So yeah. The voice in my head was right for once. _Once?! I've been right plenty of times before!_ 'Like?' _... Um... There was..._ 'One point to me.'

"Got another book Eve?" She nods. "What's this one?"

"Tabitha leant it to me. It's called 'The Hero of Ivaldi,'" Eve tells me. "She said it's a favorite of hers."

I bite my tongue to keep from making a crack about how she's not calling Tabitha "sensei" or anything of the like. Considering how quickly the two became friends, and how good a job Tabitha did teaching Eve to read, it's actually gotten a little weird not seeing the two together.

"Sounds like a fairy tale," Fuka says as she leans back in her chair and props her legs up on the table. "What happens in it?"

"Perhaps you could read it yourself?" Eve suggests.

"Why bother?" Fuka asks. "It won't matter once the dream's over, and having to learn an entirely new language seems like it'd take way too long. How'd you even manage it so quickly?"

"Tabitha thought it might have had to do with the gandalfar runes and how they interact with the familiar's mind and how it processes information," Eve says without ever looking away from her book. "I wouldn't know the exact details, since I haven't read enough about the void familiars."

"It doesn't help that we technically don't know anything about them, other then the obvious," I say.

"That sucks," Fuka says. "But if you and that other Louise know a whole lot more about that stuff, why don't you just go to someone with that? Or write your own book or something?"

"And you expect anyone to believe us?" I ask.

"Yeah, I guess," Fuka says with a nod. "I'm still not sure I believe you, but I'm willing to let it go. I've seen weird stuff before."

"So have I," Eve agrees. "Alternate timelines and time travel don't seem that impossible."

"I still have a hard time believing it, and I almost qualify as living proof," I remark.

"I don't think, 'almost' would be the proper word there."

"Hmm? Oh. Hey Kinji," I greet. "Where's Shana and Aria?"

***BOOOOM***

"Having a friendly little chat," he replies.

"That's friendly?" Eve asks.

"Considering they claim it's genuine training and not just a fight over food, yeah, I'd say it's friendly," Kinji says with a nod.

***BOOOOOOOM***

"Of course I say that, but that doesn't make it true."

"Just like a lot of things to come out of your mouth," I remark.

"I wouldn't say a lot of things," Kinji defends. "Either way, there is something I've been meaning to ask you."

"What would that be?"

"Weren't we supposed to be saving the world?" he asks. "The angel said something about that, then about getting us weapons before disappearing. Shouldn't she be back by now?"

"I forgot about that," Fuka admits. "She said she'd be back in around a week, right? Eve, has it been a week since we arrived here? You have a better sense of the passage of time then I do."

"It's been around 8 days," Eve says. "I'm not the person to ask if you want anything more specific then that."

"So shouldn't she have arrived by now?" Kinji says.

"We don't know what she's doing," I say. "She could be on her way here this very second, or she could be avoiding some kind of inter-dimensional high security police force. You just never know when it comes to things you didn't even know existed until a few weeks ago."

"I guess. Still seems a bit weird to me," Kinji says. "She's talking about stopping a world-ending threat, but can't even adhere to her own schedule?"

**_Thanks for talking about me, now please move!_**

"Speak of the devil," Kinji says before back up.

Me, Fuka and Even also stand up and take a few steps back. The table unfortunately neglects to act on Ariana's warning and is torn apart when a portal of sorts opens up on it. _It's sacrifice shall not be in vain._ Ariana comes tumbling end over end out of the portal. She pops up and turns towards the portal.

"Okay, close! Close now!"

The portal starts to shrink, but not before a light of some sort shoots right through her shoulder.

"D-dang," she says as she puts a hand to the wound. "Is there anything a few levels above 'a close shave?' I hope there is, it would be a much better fit for that situation."

There's a little glow, and the wound's gone. Judging by the sheer amount of blood and holes in her dress, it doesn't look like that was the only wound she had to heal. _Did you just decide you wanted to be swiss cheese and then realized being full of holes is a horrible idea?_

"Ha ha, laugh it up I'm... just gonna... take a nap."

With that, she collapses face first onto the floor. Or she would have, if Eve didn't do that morph thing, turning her hair into a hand to catch Ariana with.

"Good job Eve," I tell her.

"Thank you. Is Ariana okay? It doesn't look like she has any injuries."

"She's probably just tired from having to constantly heal herself," Fuka suggests. "She doesn't look like she's been in the best of health, after all."

"Didn't that use to be a white dress?" Kinji asks.

"Hence, 'constantly healing herself,'" I point out. "Let's get her somewhere to rest and round up everyone."

***Scene Break***

And that's how we all wound up in Louise's room, waiting for Ariana to wake up. Since we couldn't really do anything about someone needed to sleep, we just bounced ideas off of each other about what she was doing that led to getting all those holes and blood and stuff everywhere.

"That's stupid," Nagi said after Taiga did her speculating. "Why would police be after a supernatural being?"

"Well it's possible she took some things from a police storage, they saw and went after the thief." Taiga defends.

"But how could they see her? She could have just gotten something and warped right back out!" Nagi counters.

"And here my problem with that was that we'd be getting completely normal human-grade weaponry to fight a world-ending force," Kinji tells them.

"I was concerned with the fact that we still don't know what we're fighting," Ryuji adds.

"Maybe when she wakes up we can ask her," Hayate says.

"Just spitballing here, but shouldn't we have maybe done something about the blood drenched dress?" Fuka asks. "Like, clean it or something?"

...

"So, how wants to help Fuka out with that, or rather, help Ariana out of that?" I ask, prompting another silence.

"Maybe you should have thought about that one," Eve suggests.

"Thought about what one?"

"You recovered fast," Shana says to Ariana as she wakes up.

"I just needed a quick power nap," she says with a stretch. "Geez. They do not go gentle. I don't think I need to tell you guys how close I came to dying."

"What happened anyway?" Aria asks.

"I just happened to run into a few old colleagues," Ariana says as she gets out of the bed. "Turns out I'm still wanted. It happened, what, 30, maybe even 40 years ago? I thought most of them would have forgotten by now. Still shoot on sight. It's honestly surprising they still recognize me. I even changed my name like, three times."

"..."

Our group looks at each other, and the message "Okay, who's going to ask?" is conveyed among us. A silent battle of wills is held. Who will break first? Who is willing to ask about that unfortunate past event?

"Feel like explaining a bit more about that one?" Ryuji is the first one to break. Thank you Ryuji.

"Nope!" Ariana says with a giant smile. With that the topic drops. "Right! Okay, it took a bit more work, and a few more near death experiences then I anticipated, but I think I got everything we needed."

"Right. Now where is it?" Kinji asks.

"... Huh?" Ariana asks.

"The stuff you were gone for a week trying to get. Where is it?"

"Um..." Ariana pulls out her phone and starts cycling through it. "Got 'em here somewhere. Gimme a minute."

***Five minutes later***

"Here? No, those are my contacts. God, how many numbers does Sophia even have? Sorry, give me a minute. This shouldn't take _that_ long. I know how to use a phone."

***Five more minutes later***

"No, that's pong. That's Tetris. That's Picross. Oh, this whole page is games. I don't remember downloading these many games. Nat must have been on my phone again."

"Nat?" Louise 1 asks.

"My best friend. She uses my phone for the weirdest things at times. Knowing that, it might make things a bit more difficult. Don't worry, shouldn't be that hard. They have their own folder, so I just need to find that."

***Five more minutes... again***

"I think I hit the videos section of my phone," Ariana says. "Weird. I don't remember this taking up so much space. What's-"

"OH! OH YES! OH-"

*deleted*

"..."

"Hehe," Ariana gives an awkward smile to compliment her red-as-a-tomato face. "That... That was... Stupid Nat. Ehem."

"Saito?"

"Yes, Eve?"

"Why is she so embarrassed?" Eve asks. "Was that an embarrassing video?"

"Yes. Conversation over."

Eve still seems curious. Too bad, I'm not continuing the train of discussion that involves what that video was.

_Isn't Ariana technically, like, nine? _'Once you do the converting, yeah.' _... Conversation over._ 'Agreed.'

"A-aha! Here it all is!" Ariana says, her face still a little red. "Okay. Saito, Louise, other Louise, Shana, you don't get anything since you're already set up with stuff, and I figured that you're quite fine with what you've got."

"I won't argue that," I say.

"Wait, am I the other Louise?" Louise asks the other Louise.

"I think so, I'm older then you so shouldn't I come first?" Louise answers.

"But this is my world, so shouldn't that make you the other Louise?"

"Eve? Sorry, but you don't get anything either, since you kind of already have everything you need," Ariana tells the little girl.

"That's okay," Eve assures her. "I don't really know what I would want anyway."

"Okay, who wants to go first?" Ariana asks.

"Me!" Nagi says enthusiastically. "I want to go first!"

"Alright, one nice and sturdy weapon for the little princess," Ariana says. She punches in a few numbers on her phone, and a low glow appears around the phone. The glow brightens and brightens until it takes a shape a little above the phone. A weirdly familiar shape. Ariana grabs the light, and it disappears, the end result left in it's place.

"Here we go! One M60, ready for action," Ariana says as she hands Nagi the machine gun. "Don't worry about ammo, it's been magically modified to replace itself automatically. You can hold that trigger down for days and never run out!"

"Woah! Awesome!" Nagi says as she swings the gun around as if it were a toy.

"M-Milady, perhaps it would be better if you not point that at us," Hayate tries to calm down the far too enthusiastic little blonde.

"No, it's fine, the safety's on," Nagi says. "I would know. I know things about weapons."

"She's enjoying all of this far too much," Hayate asides.

"Who's idea was this?" Kinji wonders. "The gun's practically as big as her. How are you even lifting it?"

"Magic!" Nagi says, waving the gun around as if it were a Nerf gun. _That _is_ a real gun, right? _'Let's not find out. I like this room free of bullet holes.' _Yeah point taken. I'm just really curious. _

"Milady, please put the gun away," Hayate asks. "We can't upstage everyone else, now can we?"

"Hmmm. Yeah, good point," Nagi nods her head. "Right. Where do I put it?"

"Who's next?" Ariana asks. "Hayate? You want to go, since Nagi did?"

"Do it!" Nagi says.

"If milady says so, I suppose I don't have much a choice," Hayate replies.

"Awesome, now..." Ariana starts clicking through her phone. "You'd think I'd have these weapons organized, but nope. They're just all over the place. Hmmm. Here we go!"

More buttons are pressed, more light, and the next weapon pops up. Ariana grabs it by the handle and hands it to Hayate.

"A sword?" He asks as he takes the new weapon.

"An indestructible sword!" Ariana confirms. "It might also do some other things, I don't know. I didn't have much time to actually check out the weapons, I just had to grab them and get out."

"Shoot on sight, right?" Ryuji says.

"Yep! As such, please don't worry if you find out the weaponry does some other cool thing that I didn't know about."

"Okay, does that worry anyone else?" Ryuji asks. "We're fighting a force that we have no idea what it's capable of, using weaponry that we really don't know how it works."

"Shouldn't you know how it works though?" Ariana asks. "Magic runes and all that stuff?"

"It's very easy to simply ignore anything the runes tell you," I explain. "It's almost like a cross between instinct, and a voice whispering in your head. You don't _know _how to use the weapon, but you 'know' how to use it. Lemme show you. Nagi?"

"Yes Saito?"

"What can you tell me about your new gun?"

"Oh! Well... It shoot bullets... and it's kind of heavy," Nagi says as she picks it up, causing her runes to shine. "How do I learn more about it?"

"It's not an automatic thing," I say, finishing up my point.

"That sucks," Ariana says with a pout. "That _really _sucks! I thought it was all, 'touch a weapon, become an encyclopedia.' That's really disappointingly awful. Well... Oh well. Continue with the plan!"

"What was the plan?" Taiga asks.

"I believe it was, get weapons, then wait to find out what we're supposed to do," Shana replies.

"Sounds about right," Aria says.

"Don't talk to me."

"I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to Taiga."

"Then why was that reply given to me?"

"They're not going to fight again, are they?" Eve asks.

"Probably not," Fuka assures her. "Let's shoo them out just in case."

And that's how we locked Shana and Aria out of the room. I don't think they even noticed. As much as I like the two, I'm happy they're not here with us right now. _Well, as much as we like Shana so much more then Aria. Fixed it for ya._ 'Your perverse lust for Shana is your own, leave me out of it.' _It totally concerns you! I'm you, you're me, so we're exactly the same! That means that everything I think, you agree with, even if you won't admit it! As such, you totally think Shana is hot and wanna make out with her!_ 'And cheat on my wife?' _Hell, the Louises can join in!_ 'You're not providing much evidence for your earlier claim.'

"Okay, so that's them taken care of, who's next?" Ariana asks. "Actually, since we kicked her out, let's at least get Aria and Kinji's weapons out so we don't forget. Okay, a few buttons here, and there we go!" Two pairs of guns pop out of the phone this time. Ariana hands the four firearms to Kinji.

"These are our guns," he notes.

"Yep! Exactly!" Ariana says. "We even made sure your beretta can still swap between normal and 3 round burst. The only differences between the old guns and the new ones is that the new ones are like Nagi's, with the infinite ammo. Ammo would be pretty hard to find for your's and Nagi's guns, after all, so it's better to not have to worry about it, right?"

"Sounds good enough," Kinji agrees.

"Make sure to give Aria her guns, okay? And make sure not to confuse the two. It shouldn't be that hard. Just keep firing it. If it runs out, it's yours, otherwise, it's a gun I _really_ need to return once we're done with this."

_"Then why are you giving it to us?"_ I can practically hear Kinji thinking. Unfortunately, we won't be getting answers to that one. We still have 3 people who need their new equipment. Next up? The couple with zero weapons experiences. More buttons, more beams of light, and two new items popped up, a pair of swords, one that looked like a Katana, and another that look like a sharpened chunk of metal with a hilt. _Hey, Saito, you're not sheltered enough that you don't know FFVII, right?_ 'Of course I know that one.' _Awesome. That new sword. Bigger or smaller then Cloud's Buster Blade? _'... Bigger. Definitely.' _Shit man. That's a giant-ass sword._ 'Again, it's more of a giant chunk of metal that's been stuck on the end of a hilt.

"Okay, Tagia gets the nodachi, and Ryuji gets... whatever the heck this thing is," Ariana says as she passes the two out to their respective owners.

"And what are we supposed to do with these?" Ryuji asks.

"Aren't swords kind of self explanatory?" Ariana asks.

"It's not so much a sword, as much as it is a chunk of metal on a stick," I finally vocalize.

"As accurate a statement as there ever was," Hayate agrees.

"Well, maybe it's a bit on the ostentatious side, but it was the easiest thing for me to get my hands on," Ariana defends. "Weapons are hard to get. So, Fuka? Ready?

"It's about time. So what do you got for me?" Fuka asks.

*Ding* Double bladed war axe, fresh off the phone! Well, it's kind of an axe. I mean, each blade is probably as big as Fuka is. What is with these comically oversized weapons?

"Awesome! Just like I'm used to!" Fuka says enthusiastically, as she swings the axe around the room. She's clearly very experienced, though I shudder to think about what could lead to her gaining that much experience.

"You're used to using things that large?" Louise 1 asks.

"Seems a bit impractical, wouldn't you think?" Louise 2 adds.

"Only when you haven't mastered it," Fuka says. "When you're as experienced as I am with weapons like this, impracticality isn't a problem at all!"

_But they took out the weapons mastery system in Disgaea 4! _'What?' _Metahumor, you wouldn't understand._ 'Is that what you call it?'

"Alright, we're all set!" Ariana says with effort.

"Set for what, dare I ask?" Taiga asks. "You still haven't told us what we're fighting, and it's starting to really bother me."

"Um... Right, you see..." Ariana hesitates. _They have a right to know, don't they?_**_ I know but..._** "Look. I'll tell you. Just, bear with me, it's a little tough to explain. You see..."

Then there was grey. Ariana stopped dead in her tracks. Not because she noticed the grey, it seems as if she had been frozen in time. Hmm.

"What just happened?" Ryuji asks.

"One sec," I move to the door and open it up, just to see Shana and Aria, presumably with the same idea.

"Shana, this your thing?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "No. This certainly isn't a seal. It feels completely different."

"Wait, what happened?" Nagi asks.

"Time stopped," Eve says. To prove her point, she closes her book and throws it in the air. It stops moving as soon as it leaves her hands.

"How is that possible?" Aria asks.

"Shana, you have your seal, don't you?" Louise 2 asks. "Is this one? Or someone else's maybe?"

Shana shakes her head again. "No. This is something else entirely, like I just told Saito. I..."

Shana stops. Her eyes widen, and she rushes to the window.

"Shana? What's wrong?" I ask.

"It can't be," she says.

"What can't be?" I ask.

Instead of answering, Shana's fist flies through the window, sending glass pieces flying. She follows this up by jumping out the window herself.

"S-Shana!" Louise 2 cries out.

"What's wrong with her?!" Aria asks. "We're several stories up!"

"Shana can fly, and I doubt a landing like that would even hurt," Louise 2 assures her.

"Come on, let's go," I say. "I don't think I need to mention the possibility that whoever's behind this little bubble of time might be down there. Be on guard everyone."

The obvious stated, we make sure our new weapons are ready and head down to the courtyard where Shana landed. Disappointingly, not through the window. We took the stairs, like normal people. Eve probably could have made the jump, but she decided to stay with the rest of us. _Good. Now our inferiority complex won't grow even larger._ 'I don't have an inferiority complex. I'm just kind of jealous that I don't have any cool superpowers.'

The trip through the academy was eerie. It's not like everyone was gone, people were still very clearly there, but everything being greyscale and no one moving made for a very unsettling combination. I had to remind myself every few steps that yes, these people were still alive. The rest of the group didn't seem to fare much better. We all kept a tight grip on our weaponry, hell, I even brought out Blutsauger, the sword Shana lent me a while ago, just as a precaution. Also, if we being entirely accurate, Eve didn't have a tight grip on her weapon. She can't really do that. She kept her hands transformed into blades, for what it's worth.

When we got into the academy, an odd scene sat before us. Shana was standing there, her coat on, her sword in hand, looking straight at a boy who stood on the other side of the courtyard. He looked kind of scrawny, with a mess of short brownish hair paired with a set of greyish-blue eyes. He looked kind of young, maybe 16 or so, but he had a weird aura, presence, state, whatever you want to call it. It made him seem a lot older then his body looked. His clothes weren't stylish or impressive, they seemed quite normal. Who's this guy, and why's Shana seems so shocked to see him?

"Yuji," Shana says, seemingly directing it at the boy.

Isn't that the person Shana used to love? The one who she said she killed?

"I'd be flattered that you remember one of my names," "Yuji" says to her in reply. "But that's not entirely accurate. I quite prefer Snake of the Festival, or the God of Creation. Either name works though."

"What?" Pretty much our entire group says in unison.

"What do you want?" Shana asks, rage barely held back.

"I simply want to have a chat," the Snake of the Festival says with a smile.

_We're fucked._


End file.
